Public Affairs Video News Magazine
Episode 249 (February 13-15)
Segment 1: "Peak Moment"
(22 minutes)
William Stewart reflects on the shadow side of the fossil fuel bonanza, which enabled hyper-individualism and mobility that have shredded our connections to community and place, along with increased violence and dysfunction. Likening our oil-dependent culture to an addict who must first bottom out, he suggests there may be a silken lining after collapse: the possibility of more communal and connected ways of life.
Segment 2: "An Evening of Music and Comedy: Dave Lippman"
(69 minutes)
On January 16, satirical songwriter and comedian Dave Lippman brought his "viciously funny" show to the California Stage in Sacramento. A Media Edge crew was there to record this hilarious performance of "Wild Bill Bailout, the Bard of the Bankers." Audiences have enjoyed the post-corporate comic stylings of Lippman, an anti-war troubadour who afflicts the complacent, takes the air out of the windbags of the week, de-distorts history, and updates worn-out songs with parody and thrust.
Segment 3: "A Candle for the Shabandar Cafe"
(23 minutes)
Founded in 1917, the Shabandar Cafe in Al Mutanabbi Street in the heart of the old centre of Baghdad, was a cultural landmark, where generations of Iraqis came to discuss and debate literature and politics - a living repository of Iraqi intellectual history and one of the last places where people could gather to exchange ideas. Director Emad Ali had shot most of his film by the end of 2006, but in March 2007, a massive car bomb destroyed the Shabandar Cafe, all the bookshops on Al Mutanabbi Street and killed and wounded scores of people. Days later, Baghdad’s poets and artists held a wake in the ruins of the street they loved so much and Emad took a small camera and went back to film. As he was leaving he was attacked, his camera stolen and he was shot in the legs and chest, and his own story is an epilogue to his film about the Shabandar Cafe and Mutanabbi Street - before and after they were destroyed.